In the rural and ‘backward' districts of Orissa, where starvation is still a real threat, the people prefer PDS to the proposed cash transfers… The Public Distribution System (PDS) is a great idea. If you go into the countryside and talk to people, you can understand the real value of the PDS. This is what I learnt by taking part in a recent survey of the PDS in Orissa, in June...

State links PDS to UID to plug leakages in food supplies but gaps remain Madhya Pradesh has opted for the technologically most sophisticated—and costliest—method for revamping its public distribution system (PDS). It is one of a handful of states that is trying to ensure that subsidised food reaches the segment it is meant for, the poorest of the population or those below the poverty line (BPL). But the route it has...

More than two years have passed and there seems to be no progress worth speaking about in making the promised law that will guarantee food for the people. The promise came from the UPA-2 as part of its election manifesto in 2009. It was a time of recovery from a time of economic troubles. The impact of the global economic slowdown came on top of the agrarian crisis and the...

-The Business Standard   Much depends on a strong implementation framework but the imposition of a cap by the Planning Commission could lead to arbitrary exclusions. Himanshu Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University The methodology, which is based on the framework suggested by the Saxena Committee, uses indicators that have been refined using a large-scale pilot survey There are over 400 million poor (the number varies depending on which estimate you...

DESPITE WHAT our reel-life heroes have shown us, perhaps it’s only possible to fight one villain at a time. Still, in his last few days on the job, Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde tried to battle two evils, with two reports that presented damning evidence of corruption in the BJP government. The first report, on illegal mining, had enough firepower to systematically dig holes in the state government. The second report,...